The present invention is concerned with testing of inhalers used for medicament delivery, and more particularly with devices for automatically shaking and firing an inhaler for testing purposes.
Inhalers for pharmaceutical delivery are in themselves well known and widely used for the treatment of various conditions including asthma. An inhaler typically has a mouthpiece (or in some cases a nasal nozzle), some form of storage for the medicament itself, and a manually actuable mechanism for releasing a dose of the medicament. Some inhalers are intended to be shaken before the dose of medicament is dispensed. This is the case for so-called “metered dose inhalers” (MDIs), which have a manually actuated mechanism for releasing a controlled dose from a larger reservoir of the medicament, and which typically also use a compressed propellant to eject this dose through the inhaler's mouthpiece. One such inhaler is described in detail in international patent application PCT/GB2006/000966, filed in the name of Glaxo Group Limited and published under WO 2006/097747. It has a housing which serves to mount the mouthpiece and which contains a cylinder of pressurised propellant, and a valve mechanism which is actuated by the user by means of two pivotally mounted arms which are squeezed together in one hand to release a dose of medicament into the user's mouth for inhalation.